Legal News

A non-union subcontractor presented evidence establishing a genuine issue of material fact that the company awarded a contract
to build a new school violated Indiana’s Antitrust Act by unlawfully restraining open and free competition for the public
project, the Court of Appeals held Thursday.

The 7th Circuit court of Appeals quickly affirmed a jury verdict against a former employee in the Lake County Auditor’s
Office who claimed she was unlawfully terminated for political reasons. The ex-employee failed to file any post-verdict motions,
a necessary first step for the appeals court to review the case.

A premarital agreement entered into by a pregnant teenage girl and her future husband who was twice her age was unconscionable
when the agreement was executed in 1995, the Indiana Court of Appeals held Thursday in an issue of first impression.

A proposal that would leave the long-criticized Marion County township small claims courts intact with modest changes has
cleared the Indiana Senate. The bill would raise the limit on disputes from the current $6,000 to $8,000.

The Indiana Court of Appeals held Wednesday that a probable cause affidavit allowing police to search the home of a man suspected
of manufacturing methamphetamine did not establish a confidential informant’s credibility and lacked probable cause.
The majority also concluded that the good-faith exception would not be applicable in David Cartwright’s case.

A Marion County court should have considered a Department of Correction inmate’s claims for civil penalties and court
costs against the DOC instead of dismissing the case after the DOC produced the public records the inmate sought, the Court
of Appeals ruled.

The court record is replete with evidence supporting a juvenile court’s decision that a teenage girl would be better
off if communication and visits with her mother were terminated, the Indiana Court of Appeals held Wednesday. The girl, in
foster care, often had detrimental visits with her mother.

The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed a man’s conviction of Class D felony possession of marijuana in excess of 30 grams
after finding that the claims he wanted his attorney to raise at trial would not have prevailed.

Merrillville attorney Robert E. Stochel spent a few nights in jail after a judge found him in contempt for his evasiveness,
but so far he’s avoided criminal charges despite allegedly stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients and
a former associate.

An Indiana appeals court empathized with a grandmother’s situation, but it ruled the law gave the court no choice but
to strip her of visitation with her granddaughter, whose mother – the grandmother’s daughter – had died.

Released inmates in Indianapolis are subjected to a “standard operating procedure” of re-arrest and being held
behind bars – sometimes for days – after being acquitted, freed by a judge or posting bond, alleges an amended
federal complaint filed against the Marion County Sheriff’s Department.

A bill, authored by Bedford Republican Rep. Eric Koch, would prohibit a person from asserting a bad-faith claim of patent
infringement and would enable the Indiana business accused of infringing to seek remedy in state court.

Two law schools said this month that they would begin accepting applicants who have not taken the Law School Admissions Test,
a move that may help curb weak interest and plunging enrollments in law schools across the country.

A historic $218.5 million verdict handed down Feb. 23 against Palestinian organizations for a series of terrorist attacks
that killed or injured several U.S. citizens could bring unintended consequences and should cause Congress to reexamine federal
terrorism statutes, according to a prominent Indiana legal scholar.

A dentist who slipped and fell on a patch of ice outside his office may pursue a negligence and personal-injury lawsuit against
his professional corporation’s landlord, the Court of Appeals affirmed Tuesday.